Holland Taylor's 'Ann' Bows Out on Broadway

Written by and starring the veteran Tony-nominated actress, the solo show about the late Gov. Ann Richards of Texas will play its final performance June 30.

NEW YORK -- While the Tony Awards each year provide a boost to the handful of Broadway shows given strong exposure on the telecast, they also invariably set off a spate of closing notices for productions that have been struggling at the box office.

The first to call it quits this season since Sunday night's ceremony is Ann, the single-character portrait of popular Governor of Texas Ann Richards, who died in 2006, leaving a legacy that far outweighed her single term in office.

The play is a six-year labor of love for Holland Taylor, who wrote and stars in the piece, directed by Benjamin Endsley Klein. The role earned her a nomination for lead actress in a play at the 2013 Tonys. But in one of this season's most competitive races, she lost out to Cicely Tyson in The Trip to Bountiful.

While the production had been scheduled to run at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theatre through Sept. 1, it will now close June 30 after 19 previews and 132 regular performances. Despite warm reviews, the show has been playing to less than 50 percent-capacity houses for the past two months, suggesting it might have fared better in a more intimate venue.

Lead producers on the Broadway run are Bob Boyett and Harriet Newman Leve, with a secondary producing team that includes Taylor's Two and a Half Men buddy Jon Cryer and his wife Lisa Joyner.

Plans for future productions of Ann across the country are to be announced.